Data indicating locations of mobile devices, or travel paths taken regularly by mobile devices, is becoming increasingly valuable in a wide variety of industries.
Locations and paths of mobile devices moving outdoors can be determined in a variety of known ways including using a satellite navigation system, such as the Global Positioning System. Other techniques include triangulation using cellular base stations for locating mobile devices positioned between the stations.
In many areas, though, such as indoors, mobile device's satellite and/or cellular coverage is insufficient. This makes determining device location using conventional techniques difficult or impossible. In many cases, radio-frequency reception outdoors is also limited.
Even when long-distance locating methods such as triangulation are available, they are sometimes less preferred for reasons including undesirably-low accuracy.
Industries interested in mobile-device location and travel path data include the wireless communications industry. A wireless communications service provider could use the information to, for instance, improve selection, locating, orientation, and application (e.g., allocated bandwidth) of access points. Example wireless communications service providers include providers of cellular communication channels and operators of proprietary local networks such as an enterprise.
Other groups interested in knowing locations and travel paths of mobile devices include major retailers, and other advertising entities. Managers of other destinations such as museums, airports, restaurants, public parks, or any operator of an indoor or outdoor space or area would also benefit from a better understanding of patterns of customer movement.
Providers of wireless communication channels also benefit from knowing accurate locations and dimensions of physical structures proximate their transceivers, such as buildings, walls, furniture, buildings, billboards, or any potential impediment to wireless communication. Locating outdoors structures can be facilitated using satellite imagery. Still, identifying, and determining dimensions (e.g., height and width) and location accurately of many outside structures, such as billboards, external walls, etc., typically require additional reference information such as on-the-ground radar data. Locations, orientations, and dimensions of indoor structures, such as hallways and doorways, like indoor mobile device movement, cannot be determined reliably using satellite systems, or accurately using long-distance wireless signals.
Location, orientations, and dimensions of indoor structures are useful to other industries, beyond providers of wireless communication channels, as well. Emergency service providers such as police, EMS, and firefighters, e.g., benefit tremendously from having access to interior maps of a building in which there is an emergency. Emergency personnel can review a digital map of a building interior on a mobile device while en route to an incident and while onsite.
As another example, work of home or commercial construction contractors could be facilitated by accurate interior mapping. They can save time and cost, for instance, working from properly-formatted mapping data in preparing to remodel a building, for instance, by not having to, e.g., create a virtual mock-up on their own.
Still other users of accurate indoor map data include interior decorators and owners of property, governmental or private, such as shopping malls or office space. Custom government or enterprise software packages can incorporate accurate interior map data in a variety of ways.
In addition to the shortcomings described above for determining location and travel paths and generating interior maps, efforts available to date require excessive infrastructure in order to attain even a decent level of accuracy. Many also require use of a pre-existing base map of the area. And most locating and path-determining techniques are laborious and time-consuming. In one example, personnel resort to expensive walk-testing of buildings to document building interior layouts.
Moreover, layout of many areas, such as building interiors, are usually subject to change over time. For instance, cubicle walls or even hard walls get moved, new hallways or offices are created, etc. Typically, a relatively large investment of time and cost (e.g., cost of measuring hardware and software packages) is required for again determining new layout data, using conventional techniques, when the latest determinations become outdated.